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"I’m always awake. What do you want?"

"I need to talk to you. Can you come out?"

I knew it must be major. Scotty and I hadn’t said more than Hey to each other since he hooked up with Kelsey. Anyway, I had been too distracted by the whole Marcus thing to care.

"Shhhhh … I’ll be right down."

I was already dressed for a middle-of-the-night run, so I met him in the front yard in less than a minute. I made a slashing motion across my throat to silence him before he spoke up and woke my parents.

"Do you do this a lot?" Scotty asked.

"What?"

"Sneak out."

"Why?"

"It was like you were expecting me."

"Oh. No." I explained how I go running at night.

"I never knew that about you," he said.

"How would you know if I never told you?"

We reached the kiddie park and I headed straight for the swings. The swings have always been my favorite. There’s a secret game that I have played on that playground’s swings for as long as I can remember: I swing higher and higher and try to hit the leaves on the oak tree with my feet. It’s impossible—the leaves are about twenty-five feet up. Even now, I still try in the dark. But I didn’t do that with Scotty there. I just sat and swayed.

"So what’s up?"

Scotty sighed. "I broke up with Kelsey."

I tried to look surprised.

"Are you upset?" I asked.

"Not really."

"Then why the nine one one?"

"She’s really p.o.’ed at you and I wanted you to know before school tomorrow."

"Why is she pissed at me? I’ve barely talked to you."

"I know," he said, drawing lines in the dirt with a stick. "I kind of missed talking to you and it caused a problem." He snubbed out the lines with his sneaker. "I thought she deserved to know the truth. That my friendship with you is more important than her."

There was a time when I would’ve thought that was just about the sweetest thing I’d ever heard in my life. But not anymore. Now, Scotty’s words only came off as cinematically sweet. Molly-Ringwald-movie sweet. And while I love watching those flicks, living one was all a bit too contrived for me.

"I sound like a total fag, but it’s true," he said.

Scotty was pulling out all the stops to get back in my good graces. How many sixteen-year-old guys would forsake sex for friendship? Now I know that the reality is far less monklike because Scotty is ultimately hoping that this will help him have sex with me. Still, it’s fairly impressive, even if the more accurate question is: How many sixteen-year-old guys would give up today’s booty for a between-the-sheets uncertainty?

Somehow, it just wasn’t enough.

"I feel bad about dissing you right before your sister’s wedding and all."

"Uh-huh."

"And I could still go with you."

"Uh-huh."

"If you still want me to."

That was funny. I never really wanted to go with him in the first place. Everyone else wanted me to. No way was I going to give them all the satisfaction for a second time.

"You know what, Scotty? It’s too late."

"Oh."

Of course, it wasn’t too late at all. My sister could’ve accommodated him, no problem. It was just too late for me.

"Sorry you came out here for no reason," I said.

"Hey," Scotty replied, "no big fucking deal."

the twenty-second

Today was the last day of school. Sophomore no more.

As usual, PHS held its annual awards assembly today. I think it’s supposed to give us incentive to show up. The obvious flaw in this logic is that the Hicks, Hoochies, Wiggaz, Dregs, and miscellaneous PHS bottom-dwellers who would be naturally inclined to skip aren’t going to be tricked into showing up by the promise of engraved plaques that will never be theirs. And those of us getting awards would show up anyway.

I usually rack up the plaques. Last year, for example, all the individual subject awards were divided evenly between me and Len Levy—four each. But this year I only got the sophomore English award and the French I award. It’s not fair for me to get the latter since I’m a year older than everyone else in the class. Pepe was robbed.

As much as I don’t give a crap about these things, I was shocked to be shut out of the rest of the awards. I was beat